Mega Man Dissonance
Mega Man Dissonance is a sprite comic created by Blackhook. The story takes place in the Classic series’ universe sometime after the events of Megaman 10. The plot centers around Mega Man and Proto Man trying to prevent a group of rogue robots, led by the unpredictable Requiem, from violently taking over their city. History The author, Blackhook, is a big fan of the Mega Man series of games and he enjoyed coming up with his own Robot master designs. After designing several designs and after the success of Mega Man 9, Blackhook started pondering the idea of working his creation into a game. However, lacking any programming and overall game making skills, he abandoned the idea. Still wanting to express his ideas, Blackhook decided to turn his game idea into a sprite comic. He also did this because he thought the fan community rarely if ever tried to create a Mega Man sprite comic that was not trying to be a Bob & George esque parody strip. Blackhook took inspiration from the works of Hitoshi Ariga to make a comic that would still feel like a proper Megaman story Characters *'Mega Man': Former lab assistant turned Super fighting robot, Rock is heroic as he is skilled. The moment he hears Requiem’s declarations against humanity, he doesn’t hesitate to take action. He is a sturdy little robot built by Dr. Light. He is equipped with his Mega buster - an arm cannon capable of firing energy pellets. Megaman also has the ability to replicate weapons of other Robot Masters, which he then can use in his advantage. Joining him are his robotic canine companion Rush and avian ally Beat who help Megaman stop Requiem’s ambition. *'Proto Man': Blues is Rock’s older brother and as such he sees it as his duty to help out in defending the city from Requiem. Blues isn’t as naive as his little brother and can be snarky and overconfident at times, but his heart is in the right place. His abilities are similar to Mega Man’s, but his fire power exceeds him. His mechanical body isn’t the sturdiest, but he makes up for it with a near-indestructible shield. Said shield can be also used as a hoverboard. *'Requiem': Main threat of the story, Requiem is a powerful robot that broke out of Dr. Hook’s lab. He is unpredictable and dangerous. Acting with overconfident friendliness, Requiem has no qualms declaring his superiority over humans as well as destroying buildings with people still inside. He however seems to at least respect humans as the creators of robots and gives the inhabitants of the city a chance to evacuate before he’ll claim the place as his own. Not only is he a capable fighter, but he also seems to have the ability to manipulate other robots to do what he wants them to, an ability which kickstarts the events of the comic. He has a speech quirk where he describes positive things as “day” and negative things as “night”. *'Dr. Biwa Hook': A young scientist who made an impact in the robotic community. Her “Ultimate Savebot” project was supposed to help people fight natural disasters, but her creation turned on her. She is usually quiet but is overall friendly. Her first name, Biwa, refers to a Japanese short-necked fretted lute while her last name refers to a musical riff. *'Dr. Thomas Light': The greatest robotics expert, Dr. Light is the creator of Mega Man as well as many other robots. An optimist who believes robots and humanity can co-exist peacefully, Dr. Light is a jolly man who tries to see the best in everything. Years of experience, however, made him a little less naive and he is starting to realise the dangers of those who abuse the powers of technology for their own gains. He makes sure Mega Man is always 100% ready to save the day, even if it breaks his heart to see his son put himself into dangerous situations. *'Roll': Housekeeping robot created by Dr. Light who acts as Mega Man’s little sister. She is spunky and energetic and while she isn’t a combat oriented robot, she still knows how to swing that broom of hers. *'DHN Robot Masters': Robot masters created by Dr. Hook. A majority of them seems to hold a grudge against humans and didn’t need much convincing from Requiem to help his cause. This series of robots consists of Breaker Man, Anchor Man, Honey Woman, Warp Man, Rain Woman, Laser Man, Medic Man (who renames himself Reaper Man) and Mirage Man. They are all dangerous opponents who can even overpower older model Robot masters. *'Element 5': The so called “generals” of the rogue robots. Created by Dr. Hook, they were originally supposed to be one robot master, but were split into five individual robots. Stronger than regular robot masters, each of the E5 has elemental abilities, which not even Mega Man can copy. This group consist of Requiem, Presto, Piano, Grave and Adagio. *'DLN Robot Masters': Referred to as “Light bots”, these are Robot Masters created by Dr. Light. Once enemies of Mega Man, these robots now give it their best to protect humans and fight Requiem’s attacking force. All of Dr. Light’s robots are protected against hacking and outside control, which is why they are not affected by Requiem. They still have the rest of the city’s robots to deal with. These robot masters consist of the bosses from Megaman 1 and 9 as well as the two robot masters from Mega Man Powered Up. Comic Structure and Style Mega Man Dissonance is a sprite comic. The sprites are in a customised 8-bit style to reflect the NES games’ look but to still be more expressive. The pages are usually set up in a 3 by 3 grid, but the panels aren’t all the same size. This was made to differentiate the comic from other Mega Man sprite comics, which usually follow a 4-panel format. The story takes place in one city, but there are still different locations. The plot tries to follow the usual progression of a Mega Man game, where the player has to defeat a Robot Master and their stage one by one before getting to the end stages. This is reflected in the comic through chapters, where each chapter represents a “stage” focusing on one main Robot Master per chapter. The title page of every chapter represents the “stage select” intro a player would get after picking up a stage. The tone of the comic tries to play things straight for the most part, but it doesn’t go too serious. Chapters Legacy *The Robot Masters Anchor Man and Rain Woman make an appearance in SIBRE as bosses. External Links *SmackJeeves homepage Category:Sprite ComicsCategory:Mega Man Dissonance